The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness
Living with bipolar disorder sucks! Each week Michelle Reittinger and her guests explore tools and resources that help you learn how to live well with your bipolar. If you are tired of suffering and want to live a healthy, balanced, productive life with your bipolar, this podcast was designed with you in mind.
The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness
EP 62: Resilience in Marriage: Sue Best on Supporting a Partner with Bipolar Disorder
Episode Highlight:
After years of navigating the complex intersection of marriage and mental health, Sue Best shares her deeply personal journey of supporting her husband, Travis, through his bipolar disorder recovery. In this heartfelt conversation, Sue opens up about the emotional challenges, pivotal moments of growth, and the resilience required to maintain stability in the face of adversity. This episode offers practical insights and hope for those navigating similar struggles, emphasizing the importance of community, communication, and self-care.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Balancing Roles: Sue’s experience as both a caregiver and a partner while supporting her husband’s mental health journey.
- The Impact on Family: Reflections on ensuring her children’s well-being and fostering emotional resilience within her family.
- Boundaries and Self-Care: The importance of setting healthy boundaries and prioritizing personal well-being to maintain stability in challenging situations.
- The Power of Support: How therapy, faith, and community became vital pillars of resilience and healing for her family.
- Parenting with Empathy: Teaching children about boundaries, emotional intelligence, and responsibility to empower them for future growth.
- Lessons from Loved Ones: Life-changing advice from friends and humbling lessons learned through her children’s perspectives.
Sue’s story is a powerful reminder of the strength in vulnerability and the hope that can be found in the support of a compassionate community. Whether you’re navigating similar challenges or seeking to better understand the dynamics of mental health within relationships, this episode offers inspiration, tools, and connection.
Tune in to this impactful episode and discover how resilience, love, and support can transform even the most difficult circumstances.
Connect with Sue:
Instagram: @the.other.side.of.bipolar
FREE Mood Cycle Survival Guide: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/free/
FREE Facebook Group for Moms with Bipolar: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bipolarmomslivingwell
website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theupsideofbipolar/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theupsideofbipolar/
We hit 19 years in December the first time in our marriage. He was stable and I was like, oh, oh, look at this, I have a spouse, okay, you know cause, honestly feel more like a caregiver, and so things were really different. And then he gets diagnosed and you know, okay, we're going to fight this, no big deal. And then, right before he starts immunotherapy, he has to come off of True Hope supplements. Michelle, I cried for two days straight. I could not stop crying because I knew what was coming. For the first time we've had stability, and now it's going to be gone again, because what we found is that mental illness is not chemical, really, it's micronutrient deficiency.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to the Upside of Bipolar conversations on the road to wellness. I am so excited that you decided to join me today. We're a community learning how to live well with bipolar disorder and we reject that. The best we can expect is learning how to suffer well with it. I'm your host, michelle Reitinger, of MyUpsideOfDowncom, where I help people with bipolar disorder use the map to wellness to live healthy, balanced, productive lives. Welcome to the conversation. Hey, welcome to the Upside of Bipolar. I am your host, michelle Reitinger, and I have a repeat guest. I'm super excited to welcome Sue Best back to our podcast. She is the wife of somebody that is actually in my program, the Upsiders Tribe, and I'm very excited that she has agreed to come back on herself so that we can talk about the spouse's perspective supporting somebody who is dealing with bipolar symptoms and also somebody who's trying to recover. So thank you so much, sue, for being willing to come on. I'm super excited about the conversation today. Thanks so much. I'm excited to be here. So let's start with your story, sue.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I guess I had never really thought about bipolar or anything until Travis and I were married, and we were married in 2005, december of 2005. And the first thing that I thought was really odd was he got really, really mad at me on New Year's Eve. I made a mistake and obligated us to something and didn't run it by him, and he got really upset with me, and I mean not just a little bit upset, but like really upset, and I was like, wow, that's intense and I don't understand.
Speaker 1:And then the same day, somebody that I knew also had a serious fall and she ended up dying, and I was upset about that at the same time. And he had no, he was like, you know, no support at all for that, just tunnel vision on, um, the offense that had occurred to him. And so that was, uh, very strange to me, but I just kind of was like, well, it'll be fine, you know, it'll, it'll, he'll, he'll be fine, it'll work itself out. And so the first, you know, the first few months we were married, there were some strange things that happened that I couldn't really put my finger on, couldn't really explain, but I was just like, oh, it'll be fine, cause in my mind everything is always going to be fine. You know, I'm very adaptable and very much a back bounce back person, even when I when I get knocked down.
Speaker 1:So just a lot of that. And within the first few months of us being married, he wanted to go see a marriage counselor and I was like, okay, so we started our journey of marriage counselors and there were a lot of them because they would go and he wanted. His intent with us going to see a marriage counselor was for them to tell me what I've done wrong to hurt him. Oh, it sounds so absurd.
Speaker 2:No, it's actually quite common. So no, that's a very normal.
Speaker 1:Anyways, we go and they're like actually you know that's, you know what you're saying is not really true. So then we go find another one, because that didn't happen. And I can remember really being very close to a breaking point and he got really upset. We were seeing this one counselor and he had an office here and then he had an office an hour and a half away and Travis, like we have to see somebody today, and so he was in his Jacksonville office. So we drove up there and Travis was like furious the whole time and I can remember he walked out of the room at one point and I can remember looking at the counselor going something has got to change, like I don't know if you need to drug him or what I don't know. All I know is something is not OK.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the first time I ever really voiced to anybody that things were really hard, and that was about eight years in. Things were really hard and that was about eight years in. And at the same counseling appointment, that was the first time that somebody ever looked at Travis and said you're being abusive, like verbally it was always verbal, but he just looked at him and said you're being abusive. And then I had to sit there and think about the fact that, oh, I'm in a relationship where I'm being verbally abused. What do I do with this? I had young kids. We have two daughters that are at home now, and one's 13 and one's 15. And so a lot of my lens eventually became how is what I'm living through going to affect them?
Speaker 2:And that has always been a very heavy part.
Speaker 1:But again things went. You know, we stopped going to that counselor after that little episode or whatever. And I really don't remember who we went to next. But I do remember I've had a direct sales business for since 1999. So a lot of years now. And I can remember I've had a direct sales business for since 1999. So a lot of years now. And I can remember I'm like you know what I really want to grow again. And I can remember having a conversation with a mentor and I was just talking to her and she was like Okay, well, I know, you know, I know you can do this, so how many appointments are you holding? And I'm like oh.
Speaker 1:I'm not holding appointments. And she goes why are you not holding appointments? I'm like, oh, I can't leave my house. She said, why can you not leave your house? And I'm like, well, I have children at home and they have to be taken care of. And she goes well, you're, can't your husband keep them? I'm like, oh, no, he, he cannot take care of himself and I cannot, I cannot leave my children. Like he that that will not work. And and so I, you know, there's just points where God just really opened my eyes to where I was, and he and she just looked at me and she's like nobody can, nobody can grow a business in this situation. She's like what do you think it is?
Speaker 1:And I just, I said, said honestly, I think he probably is bipolar, and my best friend, who I always room with when I went to conferences and that type of thing, um, we had had a conversation about it a few months prior and I finally, you know, when I told my mentor that, um, I said I really think he's bipolar. And and she's like, well, have you told him? I'm like, are you kidding me? No, I can't say that he's not stable. I'll say something like that. And she said and I know these words were inspired by God she said, well, would he consider going to see somebody to eliminate the possibility that it could be chemical? And I was like, I don't know, but I can say that that's something I can say. And so that night, that was our conversation. And he said, yeah, I'll go see somebody. And so that kind of opened the door to a diagnosis and a change. And I say a change because he became medicated.
Speaker 1:And I will say that things were better, but I'm not sure how much better they were. They were more different than better. And all this time I'm living in survival mode and I think if anything defines being a spouse of somebody that has bipolar, it's you're in survival mode, that's where you live and you do the best you can and you're very unaware of your own needs. If anything, like I would say, very unaware, very aware of the needs of those around me, but very unaware of my own, like basically, would tell anybody oh yeah, I don't have any needs, I don't need anything, just won't. So, anyways, and then you know, fast forward.
Speaker 1:So that was in 2015 and he was better, but still not stable. He was still suicidal and and I think there's, you know, there's so much weight that comes with that, so much weight that comes with with watching somebody walk out the door and going I wonder if they're going to come back, I wonder if I'll see them again, um, or, you know, are they going to be okay? What's going to happen when they come back? Who's going to come back? All of these things are your daily life and it's, it's tremendous and it's a lot and, yeah, oh my gosh, sue.
Speaker 2:So there's so many things. I'm like taking notes over here because I'm like don't forget to ask her about this, and so one of the things that I think a lot of people would like to hear more about is when you're in a marital relationship, in order for there to have a healthy marital relationship, you have to be vulnerable, right, each person has to be vulnerable with the other person, and when you make yourself vulnerable, I always imagine it kind of like opening yourself up. You know you're, we have this, everybody has kind of like a protection around them. And when you're in the marital relationship, you're opening that protection up and allowing that person to harm you, because in order to connect, you have to be vulnerable and risk harm right, but when you've got somebody that's unpredictable, like that what you were describing with the you know every time he leaves the house, you don't know who's coming back. You don't know if he's coming back.
Speaker 2:You cannot allow yourself to be vulnerable Like it's not safe. It isn't safe. You would have learned that it isn't safe. So how did you try to think of the right way to ask this question? I almost want to ask why you stayed. I asked my husband the same question, because God would not let me go.
Speaker 1:I begged, I prayed. I'm like God please let me leave. And he wouldn't, and that's the reason I stayed is because God did not allow me to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and one of the things that I experienced from you know, from the perspective of somebody who was quite ill when my kids were younger I felt very helpless. I felt like I had no control over the you know, and especially after you get a bipolar diagnosis like the bipolar diagnosis, it's almost like it gives you permission to to to still be unstable because you're like, well, I can't help it. I'm, I have bipolar, you know, and um, and there was a lot of within the mental health space. There was a lot of fostering of self-centeredness, the way that they approached it. There was a lot of like it's not your fault. Your family needs to understand you know you're doing the best you can kind of mollycoddling of. You know, of the person who's struggling.
Speaker 2:I experienced that myself and I started to have times I didn't experience it as much with my husband, but I experienced it a lot with my children where I could see the damage I was doing to them. I knew my behavior was abusive. I knew when I would have these like rage outbursts with my kids, that that's abusive, whether or not I meant to do it. I was abusing my children and I didn't like that, but I didn't know what else to do. I felt very helpless Right and I've told you before, you know, in private I I'm, I wouldn't have blamed my husband if he'd left, like I wouldn't have blamed him, especially when I had my breakdown that year when I made multiple attempts on my life and I, you know I, was hospitalized over and over again. He was the one who stopped me each time when I tried to end my life, like that is. That is emotionally devastating, and I would not have blamed him if he'd left and I.
Speaker 2:It took him, I think I don't know 10 years to be able to answer the question, maybe more than 10 years to be able to answer the question. Why didn't you leave? Cause I would ask him all the time he's like, I don't know. Like, stop asking me that question. I don't know, I'm here, you know and and that, but um, but can you, can you talk about? Like at the beginning of your marriage, I'm sure you were much more open, because when you come in it's all roses. When we get married, right, you know, oh, I love you so much and everything is going to be, you know, beautiful and perfect. And that have you ever considered? Like the process that you went through in in like removing, like losing your vulnerability. I don't know if that's the right way to ask it, because I think there's probably got to be a conflict within you because you're, like I'm his wife, I should be, you know, like you feel guilty for not being vulnerable, but then there's, you know, survival mode like kicks in and you're like not thinking about that anymore.
Speaker 1:So can you do you understand the question I'm asking you Like yeah, yeah, I think just being a thinker versus a feeler For me, you know, that was. I think that's part of the reason I was able to stay and I would say that I built I'd say I built some pretty good walls because I just knew that I couldn't trust. And so the way that I couldn't trust, and so the way that I tried to support him as a spouse was just being as attending to his needs as possible.
Speaker 1:And if he asked any questions about me. I had no answers.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, well, and that was one of the things it took. Sorry, there's a lot of things I'm going to say. I shared this with you before, but when my husband finally agreed to do marriage counseling with me, we were a different situation where I kept trying to get him to go and he was like, yeah, I'm good, like no, I'm okay, I don't really want to do that. But as he saw me healing and he started to trust me more, he finally got to the point where he's like, okay, I'm willing to try this. And it was in that marriage counseling experience. And I think that's one thing I actually want to talk a little bit about, because therapy in general is only productive if the person who is going, or the people who are going, are willing to look at themselves.
Speaker 2:You cannot go into therapy looking for themselves. You cannot go into therapy looking for validation. You cannot go into therapy looking for somebody to just pat you on the back and say it's okay, right, or like your experience. You know. You can't go into therapy looking for somebody to shape your spouse up right. It has to be. Each person has to go in with the idea I want to do what I need to do. I'm going to do my part. What do I need to do in order to bring a healthier version of myself into this relationship, you know? And so when we finally went I it was.
Speaker 2:We had an experience one day where I kept explaining how my husband felt to the therapist, because my husband wouldn't say anything, and I don't like uncomfortable silence, and so you know, I say, well, he does this and he does this, and I think he feels this and stuff. And the therapist kept interrupting me and say, scott, how do you feel? Like? He kept, she kept coming back to him and and I can't remember the way that we came to it, but it came to the point where she she helped us recognize my husband didn't know how to identify needs anymore.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that he didn't want to share them, he didn't even recognize them anymore because I was the squeaky wheel who had gotten the oil for almost all of our marriage. And he got to a point where he didn't feel like he could have needs anymore and so he just stopped recognizing them. And I would ask him I asked him all the time what do you need from me? How can I help you? And he'd be like I'm good. And it wasn't that he didn't want to share, he didn't even know how to identify them. What does that feel like? Do you mind sharing how that feels? Did you get to a point where you started being able to recognize your needs? Because it's not like the needs don't exist. They get suppressed or ignored and then they can come out in other ways, like anger or frustration or, you know, emotional. There's a lot of emotional stuff that gets bottled up inside of you when needs don't get identified and met.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that I felt like I could have needs two days a year and that would be my birthday and Mother's Day, and those were the only days that I felt like I had agency to ask for what I wanted on those days.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, in the spring, there's a lot of pollen. Well, pollen inflames the brain. Well, when the brain is inflamed, things get worse. So then, like even on days that I may normally be able to express needs, I was like, oh, nevermind, he's not okay, so nevermind. And like he worked at the fire department on shift work and I would pray that the shift calendar ended with him working on my birthday. I always wanted him to be at work on my birthday so I could have a good birthday. Um, cause my birthday's in April. And so, um, yeah. And I was like and he'd say, oh, I'm working on your birthday. Do you want me to take off? No, that's about as far as it got on. Expressing my needs was just no, I don't want you to take off. My needs was just no, I don't want you to take off.
Speaker 1:So I would say it's been until the last year that I have more started taking care of myself, and one reason is because one of my friends at church just came up to me and he was married to somebody with bipolar and their marriage ended years and years ago, I mean like over 20 years ago. But you know he's, I know part of his story and he just came up to me one day and he's like you better start taking care of yourself. And I mean now, because if something happens to you, what do those girls have? And he got very in my face in a good way, you know he. He got very direct with me about you have to. It's not an option. I don't care what. I don't care what you think is important in your life. If you don't start doing this, you are not going to be able to survive. So I think that was a major turning point in going Okay, yeah and yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think you know, going back to the counseling thing, one of the things that I recognized in my marriage was it Counseling would not have been productive had we tried to do it when I was not doing well, when I was struggling because this is not well, it's not an excuse, but we feel like a victim.
Speaker 2:We feel like things are happening to us. You can't kids play one day and realized that if I ever successfully ended my life, that it would ruin my daughter's life, she'd blame herself that I started even even attempting to figure out how to take responsibility for myself. Like and I think that that's one of the challenges with the bipolar diagnosis, you know, with a lot of these mental health diagnoses is it makes us think we've gotten, we've been given an answer for our behavior. It it it ends curiosity into the source of the symptoms. It ends curiosity. It ends any thought that we have any control over this. You know we're, we're waiting for the medication to fix things we're waiting for. You know we're expecting everybody around us just to hold space for us. You know those kinds of things and and so I know that you and I have talked about, um, the importance of you being in therapy and learning how to set healthy boundaries for yourself and learning how to make sure that, because it doesn't feel good from my perspective with my husband it didn't feel good for him to let me hurt him. It didn't feel good for me to be hurting my children like that. That's not helping anybody, it's enabling and it is not helpful, because we can see the damage we're doing. We may not see it in the moment, but we definitely see it afterwards. And so I started to understand how critical it was for my husband to not just have permission but recognize his responsibility to have healthy boundaries for himself and for me to teach my children how to have healthy boundaries.
Speaker 2:I got my kids in therapy, but I had to work on myself. I had to be responsible for myself and I had to do the work to heal. While we were in a marriage counseling session one time and something came up and I realized my unhealed trauma from my first marriage was still impacting my current marriage and I was shocked by that and I realized like, okay, I cannot avoiding, this isn't helping anything, it is making things worse. I have to do something about this. And so I had to go into my individual counseling and I had to do the work to heal from that so that I could eliminate those triggers and eliminate the damage from that, so that I could eliminate those triggers and eliminate the damage. So what? What has been your experience with therapy? Cause I know that things have. You've. You've done more work personally. Has that helped you in your marriage and has it helped you learn how to manage things better, like how? How has that, how has doing your own work helped you?
Speaker 1:Um, I would say it's helped me to see things from a different perspective. It's helped me to go oh, I can use my voice and if he chooses to get mad, that's on him, because I very much tried to control the atmosphere because I didn't want, you know, I didn't want my kids growing up in turmoil. I just didn't, and my youngest in particular is super sensitive to that. And so, me addressing, if he's saying things to me and they're hurtful and I address them, she considers that we're arguing and so don't want to argue in front of her. But at the same time I'm like I was like I'm sorry, you see that as arguing, and even to the point of saying I'm sorry, you see that as arguing.
Speaker 1:I'm not okay with him speaking to me like that, you know. And so even with my daughters just being able to say hey, I'm not going to. You know, it's not healthy for dad to say that and I'm not, I mean cause she will hear if he's angry and typically when he's angry he's really hurting. But because he's hurting it comes out as anger and she's like what's dad mad at you about? I mean, in a heartbeat she will come find me if she hears anything and say what's he mad at you about? Are you okay? But I had to be willing to find my voice and willing to risk more conflict than I was already living in in order to find part of myself again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you started learning how to set boundaries, those are boundaries that you're talking about, because boundaries, we don't have any control over anybody else. We don't have any control over anybody else. We don't have any control over the other piece of people's choices, their behavior, their you know, you can't. A boundary is not saying you can't do this. To me, that is not okay. A boundary would be saying if you choose to do this, I am going to do this. You know I am going to. I'm going to say that's not okay, I'm going to walk away. I'm going to walk away, I'm going to leave the house. This is what I'm going to do if you choose to do this. That's the boundary and I think it's really important for people to understand that.
Speaker 2:But it can be really hard when you first start setting boundaries because it feels uncomfortable and most often, especially with somebody who doesn't respect boundaries and people who have mental health challenges, especially bipolar, are notorious for not having healthy boundaries. I had my kids, my poor kids, like. It took a long time for me to learn how to respect their boundaries. My daughter started asserting herself you know, it wasn't she, it was just like I don't like this anymore, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like it when you talk to me like that and I would be like no, you have to talk to me, you have to sit here. And it took a long time for me to recognize that I'm running over the top of a boundary. She's trying to set a boundary with me and I'm not respecting that.
Speaker 2:So what was it like learning? Was it something that you were doing conscientiously or was it just like survival? What was the experience that you had with starting to learn how to set boundaries for yourself? And did you struggle with that? Because I think a lot of times people think I have to be good at this right away, and it's not. It's a struggle learning how to identify what a boundary is and then learn how to set it and then what to do when you get resistance. So what was your experience with that?
Speaker 1:Well, one of my really adaptive habits was apologizing for whatever he was upset about, whether I did anything to cause it or not. I'm like, if I can just apologize, enough, because he used to give me speeches a lot about how I don't apologize, right. So I'm telling you it's been, it's been a ride, but anyways, you know. So I used to get the. You don't apologize, you're not sincere, you're so cold, you don't care. You know all this. Apologize, you're not sincere, You're so cold, you don't care. You know all this. So I'm like, okay, check the boxes of caring, apologizing correctly, being sincere, you know, check all the boxes, check them all.
Speaker 1:So I would just, I would literally do whatever I could to try to stabilize his emotions as much as I could. You know, I would just like, oh, it's my fault, it's my fault, you're upset, it's my fault that that happened. Oh, I'm so sorry I did that, you know. And then you know, and I'm not one to tip it, you know, I mean, that's very opposite of my personality. It's like I'm not going to take responsibility for something that's yours, but with Travis all day long, I would do it just because I didn't want more backlash. Yeah, it's like I just want to try to calm the backlash. And then finally I was like you know what? I've got so much inner turmoil right now I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's like I had to learn to say I'm sorry, you're upset about that, I'm sorry that that hurt you, because his big thing is, you know, the IFS internal family systems. There is a part of him that is still hanging on to something that happened almost 20 years ago and he's still upset about it. And, like today, he's still upset about it and it still affects him. And so I had to. I just had to learn that you know what. I'm so sorry that that's upsetting to you and let it go.
Speaker 1:I think I could describe life as very much feeling like I live under a microscope. I picked up my phone and he interpreted that as I don't care about him, I care about my phone more, don't care about him, I care about my phone more than I care about him, and I'm like no, actually I just want to read the Bible, just want to do my Bible study. Before I got out of bed, you could be spending time with me right now instead of your phone, and I mean just like all the things, and I just had to go okay, and I'm going to finish this and then I will talk to you. So you know it, just it. It really took a lot of took a lot of reprogramming and I'm still a work in progress. I'm still a huge work in progress. I mean I met with my therapist this morning for an hour, so still a work in progress on how do I do this, how do I, how do I do this, how do I navigate this?
Speaker 2:Well, and I think that it's really important for people to understand that this is. Human beings are changed constantly, like it's. You know we can end up in cycles of. You know they call it. You know I've heard some sources call it a dance. They call it. You know, I've heard some sources call it a dance. You know you get in this dance. You end up in the same dance over and over again, or the same argument over and over again, or the same. You know, struggle over and over again.
Speaker 2:But you know one of the things that I've loved about the two of you, as I've observed, first of all, I want to make sure the audience understands. This is the first time that I have had a couple come into the program. The audience understands this is the first time that I have had a couple come into the program. So Travis is in the program specifically, but you came in as a support person and I thought, man, this would be amazing if everybody came in with a support person like this will be incredible because because it's the dynamics within the relationship are have such a huge impact on the healing process. And you know you were able one of the things that I love talking to the two of you.
Speaker 2:Travis has a desire to do better. You know it's. I have a desire to do better, you know it's it, but we still struggle. You know healing is a process. That is not an event. It is not something that happens in a moment. Right, and you guys got thrown a huge curveball when he was starting you know, starting to actually improve. Things were getting better and then he got diagnosed with cancer and that threw everything into major upheaval, right. But one of the things that I love about what you're doing is that you are there to support him and you are still working on yourself and your and your daughters learning how to set healthy boundaries and make sure that you improve the health of the overall marriage while you're supporting him in his healing process. What, sorry, I've got like so many questions in my head about this.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about physical health and mental health real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Physical health and mental health real quick? Yeah, absolutely, because this is something that I think is absolutely huge and very telling. Travis was diagnosed with cancer in October and we got a clear diagnosis in November and it was a very aggressive melanoma, stage four, metastatic nodular melanoma, so extremely fast growing Cannot tell you how much support we had come around us. I mean, it was like a tidal wave of support and it was amazing. And even though his diagnosis was that serious, I may have cried two or three times, I just didn't because I was like we can do this, this we can do.
Speaker 1:Travis went on True Hope supplements in the last year he cross-titrated off of Lamictal, which is a mood stabilizer. Supposedly that kept him in a suicidal place, but whatever, and on to true hope and for the first time in our marriage we hit 19 years in December. The first time in our marriage he was stable and I was like, oh, oh, look at this, I have a spouse, okay, you know, cause honestly feel more like a caregiver, and so things were really different. And then he gets diagnosed and you know, okay, we're going to fight this, no big deal. And then, right before he starts, immunotherapy. That's the way that you treat this, the type of melanoma he has. He has to come off of True Hope supplements. Michelle, I cried for two days straight, like literally just cried all that, like could not stop crying because I knew what was coming and I'm like, oh my gosh, for the first time we've had stability and now it's going to be gone again. Yeah, because you know, what we found is that mental illness is not chemical, really, it's micronutrient deficiency.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's been really interesting because coming back into a place where we're you know, where Travis is unstable, again Coming back into this place, our conversations are different because he's not on a prescription med so he can actually process things. But it's 100 times harder dealing with that than it is stage four cancer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, and you guys talked a little bit about this in the other episode. So anybody who hasn't listened to the episode with them as a couple please go back and listen to that. I'll make sure I link that in the show notes. But you guys talked about the difference between the support that you received with the cancer diagnosis versus the lack of support with the bipolar diagnosis. But you know what I won't.
Speaker 1:Last I won't. And that's when one of the things I'm like I've been very intentional like going back into, of the things I'm like I've been very intentional like going back into this place, I'm like I'm going to write down all my lessons. I'm going to like really write them down and get some solid like be very curious and very observant and I'm like I am so much faster to ask for prayer about a physical need than a mental need.
Speaker 1:I am so much faster to ask for help because of a physical need than a mental need. I am so much faster to ask for help because of a physical need than a mental need. So it's not so much that the support is not there, it's that I don't ask.
Speaker 2:I don't think that people know how to give support, though. I mean, even if you were asking, I don't think people really know what to do, and that's one of the reasons why, in the M cycle survival guide, that the very first thing is your support team and identifying what the needs are, how they can help and what the boundaries around that help, because a lot of people don't even know what to do and most of the time you're not asking for help until you're in crisis, and that burns people out, right, you know, if the only time they get you know you're asking for something is when your things are terrible, people get to the point where they're not going to pick up the phone anymore, right, they see your call and they're like, yeah, I'm not going to do that today, right, and so it's really. All of this comes back to personal responsibility. Everybody has to take responsibility for themselves and you cannot stabilize somebody else. It's just not possible, and that's one of the challenges with, especially with, a spouse. I think that it's also challenging with a child, because you feel responsible for your children, right, but regardless, you know and I've used this analogy before I always hesitate because I don't want people to take it the wrong way, but it's very similar to dealing with a drug addict and I use that on myself Myself.
Speaker 2:I think that my husband and my children were dealing with somebody in a similar situation because until I wanted help not that I didn't want help I was going to all my doctor's appointments, taking all the medication, doing all the things I was supposed to do all my doctor's appointments, taking all the medication, doing all the things I was supposed to do, but things weren't getting better. I was just getting worse Until I recognized that there was something I could do. Things didn't get any better and nothing, no amount of help from my husband or no amount of help from anybody from the outside was going to do anything about it. Right. And that's similar to somebody who's dealing with drug addiction, because you see somebody suffering, you can see the damage that's happening around them, you can see the damage they're doing to themselves, but no amount of talking to them, no amount of of you know, any of the support that you give them is going to do any good until they want to help themselves right. And so it's a similar kind of thing where you have to set boundaries, you have to say okay, and I love what you say.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you a little bit if you can talk a little bit about what you do to help your children, because it's one thing to set a boundary for yourself and protect yourself, but learning how to help your children recognize they are not responsible, like you talk about with your youngest daughter, like children feel responsible. They can feel people's emotions. They feel like they're responsible for making people better. They don't understand, they don't understand emotional responses, they don't understand what's going on. All they know is that you know, like you said with your, with you and your husband when you started standing up for yourself, like, oh no, mom and dad are arguing.
Speaker 2:You know maybe their marriage is going to end. You know like they're. They're like how do we fix this? What do we do? So what? What kinds of things can you have you experienced? Do you do to try and help your children, your daughters, learn how to have healthy boundaries for themselves and learn how to recognize that they're not responsible for their dad, they're not responsible for you, they're responsible for themselves. How do you help them with that?
Speaker 1:We have a lot of conversations. We homeschool, which has been amazing because I'm like you know what. They are not going to have the Declaration of Independence memorized. I'm not that homeschool mom, I'm the homeschool mom. That's like let's talk about. Let's talk about boundaries, let's talk about mental health, let's talk about how are you doing and what do you need. What's important to you this week? What do you need? I need to make sure that I go and spend time with this specific friend. Okay, then we're going to set that up.
Speaker 1:You know, it's, it's what it's a lot of asking them what do you need to take care of yourself? What's going to be helpful to you this week? How are you doing you know what? Making sure they eat. And let me tell you, my kids do not eat the same thing.
Speaker 1:I've got one carnivore, um Maris 13,. Hardcore carnivore. She is in a growth spurt 90% of the days. Um, I've got Emery who's like I don't really like meat, you know, and she, she will eat it Cause I'm like, okay, we have to have, you know, your iron levels low. We got to take care of this. So I mean, she'll eat and you know, but it's, it's being intentional about taking care of their needs and having conversations and and also having really hard conversations with Travis, like Maris um goes she and, and I would.
Speaker 1:I was horseback riding with her until I broke my foot and I just haven't started back yet. And that was another boundary is, you know, being able to recognize. It's okay for me to do something fun, that's okay, that's important. Yeah, and I started singing last fall again. Hadn't sang in years, started singing in the Wilmington Choral Society. So you know, it's doing those things that take care of me so I can take care of others. But anyways, with Maris I'm like dad wants to come to horseback riding. She lost it, absolutely lost it. She's like mom. That is where I go to get away from him.
Speaker 1:And she's like that's where I go to get a break. And I cannot, I absolutely cannot have him there. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you know cause? I got Travis on one side thinking I've got stage four melanoma, I might die from this. I really want to see my kid ride horseback. And I got Maris on the other side saying this is the only place that I have a way, and so balancing the two of those is so much pressure, it's so much. And just being able to just going Maris, I understand, and if you change your mind, let me know and going Travis, I'm so sorry, but Maris is not at a point where you can come. And it's having those conversations and seeing him cry about it because it hurts him, and it's just all kinds of hard.
Speaker 2:My actions caused harm and one of the hardest experiences I ever had with my children was going into a therapy session my daughter invited. So that was one thing I want to make sure everybody understands you need to pick a therapist you trust, you know. So I vet my therapist the therapist for my children when they were underage. Now you know, now they're adults and they can. You know my oldest is an adult but, um, but you have to find a therapist you trust and then you have to let go of it.
Speaker 2:It's very hard because I was trying to help them learn how to use therapy proactively, cause I at the beginning it wasn't super productive because I was putting them in cause. I'm like let's fix you. I know, I know I hurt you, I want to fix you, we're going to fix you. And I stuck them in and neither of my older two wanted to do it. They were like I don't like this, I don't understand. My son was like I don't know why I'm going, mom, it's just like so stupid. I'm like because I hurt you and me included in a session. And it was a very humbling experience because I had to go into the session and listen to my daughter talk about how much I'd hurt her and I and I I went in consciously thinking do not defend yourself, like just this is her space, you're there for her. And it was such a hard experience for me. But one of the things I realized is that part of the process of becoming whole as a person myself and then becoming whole and again it goes back to kind of like the drug addict analogy or comparison when somebody is a drug addict, they do a tremendous amount of harm to people around them. You know, and when we're struggling with these symptoms with bipolar, we do a tremendous amount of harm to people around them. You know, and when we're struggling with these symptoms with bipolar, we do a tremendous amount of harm to people around us. And I realized if I love my daughter, if I really love my daughter, I need to give her space to heal. I need to allow her to tell me how much she hurt me and not defend myself, not stand up for myself and say, well, I didn't do it on purpose, doesn't matter, you know like.
Speaker 2:If you know like, if you know if a child when you've got little children if they hurt somebody on accident, you still invite them to say I'm sorry because you want them to acknowledge something that they did, even though it was an accident, caused harm to somebody else, and you want them to acknowledge that so that they can. You know the other person feels seen and they feel like they've. You know they care that they hurt them and it's the same kind of thing, you that they hurt them, and it's the same kind of thing. You know I didn't do it on purpose, but I am really sorry. I never meant to hurt my child and I want her to heal and part of the healing process is letting her have her space. You know, and and like you were saying with the with the horseback riding, you know I I had to learn how to. When my daughter says I don't want to be around you right now, I had to be okay, all right, I respect that. You know you can have your space and and so you know it's it's really.
Speaker 2:I understand how, what you're talking about, how difficult it is to balance both things.
Speaker 2:You know, because your husband loves your daughter, he wants to be there for her, he wants to be included in her life and at the same time, you know you're teaching your daughter to stand up for herself and if she's, you know she has a place where she feels safe and it's created a pace of safety. She has to be able to say no, this is my space, this is my time. I need this for myself, and so that's tremendous that you're teaching your children how to identify their needs and ask for the things their needs to be met and then expect that their boundaries to be respected. That's incredible, because a lot of people don't learn that in their youth, and so you know, even though they're going through really hard things for them to be learning these things, you know they're. I feel like they're going to have, they're going to be quite far ahead of the curve in a lot of ways, because they will have learned some things that a lot of people don't learn until well into adulthood.
Speaker 1:And we also. I mean, we do have an incredible support system. I mean even in the mental health. Again, it's much broader with the physical health but it's smaller as far as support goes for the mental health. But my daughters both have people that they can talk to health. But my daughters both have people that they can talk to that. You know, not just not just therapists. I was like right now I've got one child that's like, yeah, I'm not going because I don't want any advice right now, okay, thank you for telling me, so we don't waste our time or money going to therapy, right?
Speaker 1:now but you just let me know when you're ready again. But she's talking to somebody and you know she's able to express herself and she's expressing herself more than she has in years, which is really exciting to see. And you know, it's like we've got mamas that are like, hey, come hang out, you want to spend the night at our house. You know, stay a couple nights, whatever. And mamas that take care of my kids.
Speaker 1:And you know, that's been something too is just being able to go. Okay, who, who has God placed in our lives to come alongside us and and walk with us through this, no matter what it is we're walking through? He placed them here and they're willing, and I'm super, super grateful for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and that's another piece of that mood cycle survival guide, and I think you mentioned it in the in the other podcast episode. But that guide is for everybody, like, and not just for the person who's struggling with the, with the symptoms, but, you know, for you and for your daughters, like learning how to, how to identify those needs for yourself, because symptoms we, we, we think of bipolar symptoms as bipolar symptoms like this is symptoms of this disease, right? Everybody has mental health symptoms. Everybody does, and they're great information if we learn how to listen to it and so, learning how to pay attention to the symptoms that you're experiencing, whether you're feeling anxiety, whether you're feeling depressed, whatever those symptoms might be, that's part of that early warning system, which is step two in the mood cycle survival guide, where you learn how to identify.
Speaker 2:I'm starting to feel anxious. I'm, you know this. Is my body going to fight or flight? What's going on around me that is causing me to feel this way? How do I manage that? You know, and learning how to, how to take responsibility for your own mental health is critical. That's going back to the needs. Like you were saying, I don't know how to express my needs. Needs don't go away because you don't identify them. They just start to express themselves more and more loudly, in unhealthy ways often. Right, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I love about what you're saying is, in the mood cycle, survival guide, part of the emergency response team or I guess we don't call it emergency anymore, but the response team is having help for your children. That's one thing that I learned pretty quickly was how critical it was to ask for, you know, have help for my children. When they were little, it was, you know, people that I could ask. You know, when I was really sick, it were people that I could ask to take my kids for a couple hours so I could take a nap and I knew they were safe and happy.
Speaker 2:Right, as they get older, they need to be able to say I need a break. You know I need to go to somebody's house and having safe places for them to go, where they can go and and feel loved and feel safe and kind of. You. Feel loved and feel safe and kind of. You know, come back down from this fight or flight response that often kicks in when you're in instability is so critical, not just in the moment but also in the long term, for them to start recognizing I need a place to go, I need a space to create for myself that is safe. Is that something that you that kind of happened organically? How did how did that come into play into in your life with your children?
Speaker 1:The beginning of last year or at the end let's go back to the end of 23, travis retired medically retired from the fire department, and we thought, oh, things will get better after he retires. And you know, plot twist, no, they got worse and he ended up dealing with more depression and more severe depression than he'd ever dealt with. Really, we really thought that getting his sleep evened out would help fix things, but it didn't and he got worse. And our church operates like a family.
Speaker 1:I mean, I just I cannot stress the importance of community. If you don't have community, you're not. I don't know how you would make it, I just don't. And so you know I put down a lot of pride and I was like this is what we're dealing with and I need help. And if y'all can take my kids some, I would really appreciate it, because I just need them to be in a place where they can just be kids and not have to be holding their breath and tense and thankfully we got puppies for the girls in 2023 too, which that's helped tremendously, but at the same time, that was just having those emotional support animals for both of them, two golden doodles.
Speaker 1:I mean just you know they're bonkers, but could not be more. I couldn't love them anymore. I mean just absolutely adore them, and so just like just being able to go. Okay, they're teenagers and thankfully we do have enough conversations that they were saying I need a break and I'm like, all right, I will get a break for you. And then, and on top of it, you know, they we went through some healing where they both had a lot of food sensitivities and so their food was really challenging.
Speaker 1:And you know, and mamas that are like, okay, um, you know, tell me, tell me what they like to eat, and I'm like, well, emory is pretty solid, maris, it goes by the day today she likes this, especially if you buy a lot of it. Um, but just you know it was really having the mamas around me that were like this probably won't tomorrow though, especially if you buy a lot of it. But just you know it was really having the mamas around me that were like, hey, we're here for you and we know how much you carry and you know you're not going to do this alone, just like them coming to me as much as I was going to them and going. All right, I know I know you're breaking, so what do you need right now, today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's incredible. I have so much admiration for you, like the more that I've gotten to know you and seeing the way that you handle things, I know that you have a lot that you're struggling with, and and you're quite resourceful. You know it's pretty amazing and I'm so grateful that you are willing to stay and willing to, but also willing to make sure that you're and I shouldn't say but and and also willing to do the work on yourself and with your daughters so that you can can heal yourself and and present a healthy partner for your husband, as he's going through his own healing journey and it's. You know we can support each other but, like I said, each of us is responsible for ourselves. Personal responsibility and accountability is critical If anybody wants to have healthy relationships. You know we can't, we can't depend on other people to. You know, for our well being. We need to, we need to take responsibility for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a big one that I've had to learn, because, you know, again I would apologize for stuff I didn't do or, you know, just to try to smooth everything over. And and then I really got challenged to say, all right, how'd you feel after you did that? Well, first of all I prefer not to feel what I'm carrying is too heavy, and if I feel then like I might crumble, First of all I'd prefer not to feel, but seriously, you know, I'd step back and go. I literally bought feeling wheels like that have all the feelings around them.
Speaker 1:I'm like all right, well, let's figure this out. And also, learning about the Enneagram has been amazingly helpful for me too, because, as an Enneagram eight with a very strong seven wing, I had to learn that my default emotion is going to be to be angry about something. But anger was masking vulnerability. And so because I spent so much time learning Enneagram and understanding behavior in that way, I had to go okay, if I'm angry right now, what's under this, what am I trying to mask? And so just really getting there. And when I first started asking the question, of course it made me mad because I didn't want to deal with it. Yeah, again, thankfully I got this great big seven wing. That's super adaptive, but anyways, you know. But just really drilling down on the okay, what am I hiding? What am I hiding from? And then realizing okay, I just apologize for that and I don't appreciate the way I treated myself in that situation.
Speaker 1:And that didn't feel good and you know, what Do I want my daughters doing this? No, all right, then I've got to change, and I think that's another piece to my healing is just going what do I want my daughters to do if they end up in a situation like this? How do I want them to respond? How are they going to stay healthy if I don't model it? And so a lot of being willing to walk through that was like if I'm in a relationship and I'm modeling, not being healthy, do I want them to repeat this? No, okay, then figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I love what you're talking about with emotions, because when we've talked about this in the group frequently, that often, we will start to label emotions as good or bad, because we have a tendency to link them to behavior. And so if we are feeling angry and the usual anger response is an outburst, we start to say it's bad to feel angry. Anger is not good or bad, it is just information. Yeah, all it is is information. Your brain or your body is trying to deliver information. Yeah, all it is is information. Your brain or your body is trying to deliver information. You know, and I love what you've you know, you're starting to recognize like I feel angry when something is not being, you know, a need is not being met. You know that's, that's something that often needs not being met come out in anger. They come out in anger, resentment, you know, frustration, and and so, instead of labeling the emotion as bad, have some curiosity and say why am I feeling like that? That's interesting.
Speaker 2:I wonder why I feel that way and instead of judging, you know we we talk about this a lot in the group we're going to choose. We're going to choose curiosity over judgment. Why is? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I doing this thing? Why am I, you know, and having curiosity about it to drill down to what's actually going on underneath the surface, so that we can get to the root and solve the problem, rather than and I shouldn't say I have to be careful about saying solve the problem, because emotions aren't necessarily problems to be solved, but they are information. They are.
Speaker 2:We need to fill the emotion. Trying to shut it up is like trying to shut up a two-year-old. They're just going to scream louder, right, come out in other ways, but but I love what you're talking about with being curious, you know, you. You've talked about exploring the Enneagram and learning more about yourself, learning more about you know. All of this is really so helpful, I think, to everybody, anybody that's listening, because learning how to be, to look at ourselves with curiosity, to be willing to learn, to be willing to, to make changes in our lives, even if it's uncomfortable, is so important to healing and so important to recovery and to and to being able to live a, you know, a healthy, balanced life that will bring us joy instead of constant strife.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think you know, I think the curiosity also going back to your kids and how you support them, being curious with them too. Yeah, who are you? Show me who you are Like you know, show me who you really are. What makes you tick?
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 1:you great at, what are you passionate about and what do you need. You know how do I support you best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have all the things that you're talking about. I love you creating spaces for your children, teaching them how to create spaces for themselves where they can feel safe and where they can feel nurtured, and that, and helping them on how to recognize their needs, doing the same thing for yourself, like. All of those things are so critical and often are things that we don't consider, and so I love all the things that you've shared today as we close. What is the one thing that you would encourage somebody who is in a position like you maybe a partner, a spouse, a loved one, who might be dealing with the same kinds of things and don't know where to start? What would you encourage them? What's the first thing you would encourage them to do?
Speaker 1:Find your community Like 100%, it's like that's everything, ours is, our church, that has been huge. And then also find a great therapist, that and realize that you know, like, really look at your calendar. If you're a calendar person, really look at your calendar and go, okay, how am I going to take care of myself? Because you got to take care of yourself, you got to prioritize. You have to prioritize taking care of yourself If you're going to be able to sustain the battle, cause I mean, it's feels like a war a lot of days.
Speaker 1:It feels like a war. It's like it's one of the hardest. I think it's one of the most complex relationships when the person, when your spouse, who you know is supposed to be your rock and your you know, I'm very I can be very cynical about this stuff. When people are like, oh, he's my best friend, he's my rock, he's my everything, and I'm just like I so struggle with that because just the lack of vulnerability that comes from being in the fight or flight response so much, give yourself a lot of grace, which has also been really tough.
Speaker 1:It's like give yourself a lot of grace and realize it's not going to be overnight, that you're going to be okay. It's a process and that's okay.
Speaker 2:So you are amazing. Thank you so much for being willing to come on and share this. To be overnight, that you're going to be okay, it's a process and that's okay. So you are amazing. Thank you so much for being willing to come on and share this. You've been extremely vulnerable and shared incredible insights. I appreciate everything that you've shared and everything that you're doing. You're an amazing person. I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1:Well, we appreciate you because I will tell you you have been such a catalyst in how far Travis has come in his healing. I mean, you've continually pointed him to resources, to True Hope, and oh my gosh, that's the other thing. If your spouse, loved one, is not on True Hope supplements, please pick up the phone and call True Hope today and start that process. I cannot wait for the day he's able to be back on them because he is a completely different person. But not only that, not only the True Hope, but the other thing you've done is just continually gone to okay, that's a symptom of trauma. You've got healing to do. You need to talk to your therapist about that, just really pointing to true healing.
Speaker 1:And you know, I was kind of thinking the other day. I'm like, well, maybe that's why God you know God made it to where Travis had to come off of the micronutrients so that we could have this time where we're like, okay, let's objectively look at our experience this time. Instead of emotionally responding to everything, let's just objectively look at it and, instead of being reactionary, be curious and pausing and looking at everything. Your influence on that has been tremendous, tremendous, and I cannot thank you enough. I mean, I just I honestly cannot imagine where we would be right now if Travis had not found your podcast in January of 24 and started and started in your program. Um, I really I cannot imagine where we would be. It has it has been a godsend, it has been a lifesaver and we will be forever grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. I'm feeling a little, a little self-conscious now, but thank you so much, sue. You're amazing. I appreciate it so much and I will. Um, is there any any way that way, that do you want to make yourself available to people for them to contact you, or how do you want to do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will.
Speaker 2:I'll drop my Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. Instagram account is probably the best way to get in touch with me. I kind of avoid Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So anyways, probably Instagram would be best.
Speaker 2:Amazing. All right, I'll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much, sue, and until next time, upsiders. Hey, thanks for joining us today. If you're ready to start on your path to wellness with bipolar, go to myupsideofdowncom and get your free mood cycle survival guide four steps to successfully navigate bipolar mood swings. If you're ready for more, check out the map to wellness. Until next time, Upsiders.